ATI 9700 artifact problem

My ATI 9700 AIW video card has started to fill the screen with artifacts. The artifacts are on the splash screen, windows XP logon screen and after WinXP has loaded. Sometimes are worse than others, occasionally though less frequently now the screen is almost clear. So far I've cleaned the fans and heatsinks (all temps were normal), verified connections are tight. The diplay can be affected by moving the video connector at the card up and down, making me think this is a hardware problem. The only odd thing is the bios info screen does not pause as long as it used to even though no changes have been made to settings. All virus scans normal. Do I need a new video card?

I'd open up the case, remove your display card, clean the comnnectors and the slot, and replace the card in its slot ensuring that it is firmly seated. All that wiggling up and down might have worked it loose in the slot.

Then again, all that wiggling up and down (with power going to the card slot) might have damaged the card or motherboard. My suggestion, if cleaning and reseating doesn't help, would be to wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows fresh. If problems persist with a clean install of Windows then you've definitely got a hardware problem.